catch and release
by mikasa-heichou
Summary: "You want to talk to me," Mikasa repeats instead, voice hoarse with disbelief. "Our last conversation ended in tears and a fist fight. Forgive me for feeling shocked at your sudden interest in my wellbeing." Eren had always been her rock, her ride or die, the very embodiment of home and comfort. And now… well. [Eremika]


"Hey." Eren greets nonchalantly with his face ridden of any emotion. Eren looks far off; his mind is elsewhere but he's talking to her. _Talking to her_. After everything that had happened. Mikasa can't say she wanted it, but she's not horribly disappointed.

Mikasa looks up from tending to the injury at hand. There are trace amounts of blood on her hands despite her efforts to scrub them clean: pink tinges her fingers like she's blushing with her whole body, and had the situation been different, it would have been cute. Though, she can't say that almost losing your life in battle for the millionth time was cute. Looking at him now and seeing that his presence felt like an obligation, she almost doesn't want to respond. For once, his aura was completely unreadable.

"Eren."

His eyes darted to her bare neck, taking in the sight of the pale skin that's covered more often than not. There's a weird feeling starting in his belly, but he chooses not to pay mind to it. With his newly mastered skill of compartmentalization, the feeling is gone before he can even register what it was.

Eren leans against the door frame, long brown hair pulled back into a bun resting upon his occipital, and gives her a once over. It was a silent way of checking up on her, she thinks, because his eyes zero in on the blood spreading across the white fabric. She squirms under his gaze.

He tilts his chin up and back, gesturing towards her injury.

"You good?" he's manages to make out. Mikasa's mind reels at this. At first, she had simply thought he stopped by to grab something from the infirmary, not to chat with her. Besides, these days it seemed as though he wanted absolutely nothing to do with her. Her eyes narrowed a fraction and she focused her attention on her lap, something about the fit of her new pants suddenly became very interesting. Mikasa applied pressure to the wound and willed to the highest god Eren to go away before she exploded into an emotion _really _did not want to entertain.

"Fine," she replies curtly, "everything's fine."

"You're bleeding a lot." Eren answers not a second too late, and Mikasa wants to huff in annoyance. He's being very confusing.

This whole week he hadn't spared a single glance at her, not having said anything to each other since the incident at the table where he confessed his true feelings. She might have thought that there was more reason for his actions, but lately she's not sure what to believe at all. He loved them, and Mikasa was so sure of it up until now. He saved her when they were kids, and he didn't even know her. Why would you spread yourself so thin and go so far as to put your life on the line, to save a girl you only knew the name of? Mikasa would rack her brain for an answer, but every time she tried, it always ended up inconclusive. And she remembers the scarf- of course she remembers the scarf- that stupid, red scarf that she held so dearly to her heart and clung to it for as long as she could. She remembers the comfort it would bring, the anxiety it would soothe, the depression it would hush, until the relic began to induce more harm than good.

Not to mention his relationship with Armin. They were thick as thieves, attached at the hip, practically brothers. Mikasa remembered when Armin woke up after claiming the colossal titan, and Eren had been the one to beat her to him. She remembers how he had flung his arms around his neck and held him close, relieved and emotional to see his best friend alive and well. She remembers the tears forming at the corners of his eyes and the anxiety physically leave Eren's body when Armin sat up. You can't fake that, she had concluded, that's raw emotion.

He loved them.

But that's it, he _loved_ them, as in past tense. And no matter how much she might have wanted to deny that, his actions definitely backed up his claims. And even in the off chance that Eren really was just putting up a front, why would she want to get involved with all of that after every harsh word he's thrown at her?

And now, all she had were hypotheticals.

Building up to that moment at the table, Eren had, sadly, disappointed her more times than she could count: insisting they stay at Marley when everyone wanted to go home, getting the corps more involved than they should, having three-hundred and maybe more soldiers killed by Armin's hand, distancing himself, losing the light in his eyes that used to bring her comfort- Mikasa couldn't pinpoint when the pain eventually numbed, and she began to expect less and less from him. Yet, no amount of detachment could stop the pain from stabbing her in the chest when he claimed to harbor nothing but hatred for someone who was a mere slave.

So when he waltzes in here with the audacity to check up on the woman he apparently despises- to even bother putting up a front that he cared about her wellbeing- Mikasa is bound to get a little irritated. Mikasa inhales deeply and notices how her chest constricts the closer he gets. She'll have to tell Hanji about the discomfort later.

Or maybe, that was from Eren being in the room.

"I'm fine. I've had worse."

"Suit yourself." Eren shrugs, and shifts his feet in a way that makes it seem like he's about to leave. He begins to shuffle out, barely making it past the door frame before he turns back around, but the tension was too unbearable to not say anything. It sat heavy in the air and suffocated him, and even though Eren had willed himself to create distance between them for both of their sakes, he found himself unable to tear his gaze away from her. He just needed to see that she was alright, even if he had no right to know. But as Eren thought for a fleeting moment that maybe it wasn't worth rubbing salt in the wound, it was too late to change his mind. The brunet sighs, long and deep, before leaning against the wood. His arms come to cross his chest as he speaks.

"Okay. Let's talk."

Mikasa looks up briefly and meets his intense gaze before redirecting her eyes back to her hands. Words could not describe the amount of discomfort she is feeling right now, and the thought in itself pained her more than she'd like to admit. Eren had always been her rock, her ride or die, the very embodiment of home and comfort. And now… well.

"There is nothing to talk about, Eren. I have nothing to say to you." Mikasa answers evenly. She almost applauds herself for maintaining her composure. Eren frowns, a sign that he was not going to drop the conversation that easily. Mikasa quickly remembers how stubborn he is; the trait is both a blessing and a curse.

"I think you do have something to say to me, otherwise you wouldn't be fidgeting with your hands like you always do when you're nervous." Eren says sharply.

She blinks slowly and wills herself to breathe. "Okay," Mikasa tries not to let any of her feelings seep through, "I don't want to talk to _you_ about it."

"Alright," she hears Eren huff, "I'm going to ask one more time, and then afterwards you're not allowed to ask again: what is it?"

Mikasa recoils at his choice in words. _Not allowed-_

"Is there-" Mikasa chokes. He cannot be serious. The _balls _on this one. "You wanna ease up a little bit? You come to _me_, demanding answers, and then you say _I'm_ not allowed to ask again."

Mikasa watched him move with a look on her face that resembled a mix of disgust and curiosity, but nothing like respect. Eren drags a hand over his mouth and down his chin as he picks up the nearest chair. He's making a big scene out of this, she knows. Unceremoniously, he drops the chair in front of her bed and straddles it, muscled forearms come to rest on the top of the chair as he looks at her heatedly.

"I want to talk to you to settle this because things haven't been sitting well with me, either." Had she known any better, it looked like this conversation was just as painful for him as it was for her.

_'I wonder why,' _she almost wants to say. But no, she refused to get her hopes up. Mikasa spent the past couple of days telling herself he was living his best life with her out of his hair, that he was able to move on faster than her. She wanted to tell herself it was over, that the door was closed. And now, he comes in with his bullshit, forcing her to take a step back from the two she had taken forward.

"You want to talk to me," Mikasa repeats instead, voice hoarse with disbelief. "Our last conversation ended in tears and a fist fight. Forgive me for feeling shocked at your sudden interest in my wellbeing."

Eren swallows. He licks his lips, eyes darting to the left as he composes an answer in his head. "I know that this situation is… unfortunate," his voice was gruff, "but we're in Marley, and these are my days in Marley that, one way or another, you've agreed to. I'm doing everything I can to work towards our freedom, and honestly, Mikasa, the way you're reacting to it is unfair."

"Eren," she warns, "I don't think you want to start a conversation with me about what's fair." Her shift in tone causes his gaze to harden. "This is way more intense than any of us could have asked for. Sasha _died, _Eren. I joined the corps because of _you. _Armin wiped out a whole naval fleet for _you._"

Suddenly Eren is shaking his head like she said something that offended him. He holds a hand up to ensure he has the next word.

"You need to understand in case you haven't yet: everything I do is for a reason. I would never- I would never _hurt you_ like that not- not deliberately without reason, and I-" Eren inhales sharply, pausing to recollect his thoughts. His mind darts to their talk only days before, and reluctantly recalls the utter heartbreak written on her face along with the betrayal painted across Armin's. Was he wrong to think he can just hit 'undo' on all of this? His chest squeezes. "I am doing everything I can, _every week_, to bring home something to our people in Paradis-"

"Eren, I- I am trying to make things perfect _here_," Mikasa flails her free arm before aggressively pointing down the floor beneath her, "Okay? So that you can have everything that _you_ want-"

"So I'm doing this just for me, is that what this is? I'm doing this _just_ for me." his words are laced with condescension, dipped in impatience. He leans forward, upset at the turn the conversation had taken, though he can't say he didn't expect this. "Mikasa, if that's what you think, then this is a really sad conversation." Eren bites, but the woman in front of him doesn't so much as flinch. By now, she's used to his temper. She knows it like the back of her hand.

"It wouldn't be the first."

Eren sighs, his nostrils flaring from the pot of anger that was boiling in his stomach. But he watches her expression, and something inside softens every so slightly. Despite the facade she's tried so hard to put up, he can still tell that she's… sad. "Look, Mikasa, I don't know what to tell you. Sasha is gone, that moment is gone, but that's not the first time we've seen someone we love die, you and I of all people should know this. So really, there's nothing we can do about that but see this through. It's what Sasha would have wanted."

The mention of Sasha's death strikes a chord in her. Her heart squeezes at the memory of her late best friend, and the look that spreads across her face depicts all five stages of grief in five seconds. Voice cracking, she says softly, "I don't know, Eren, maybe you should have been there."

It's the most emotion she's shown on her face today, and Eren knows he's struck a chord.

Tongue in cheek, he decides to drop the conversation. They seemed to have reached an impasse anyway, and he didn't come here to fight. Silence falls over the two, and Mikasa realizes only then that the wound's screams of protest could no longer go unnoticed. She winces, visibly, and only then does Eren take note of her pain. The wound wasn't even that bad, but it stung enough to demand medical attention. The shifter stands, ungracefully pushing the chair back to where it had been prior.

"I'll go get Hanji." he mutters when he's halfway out the door.

"No," she stops him. "No. Get Armin."

Eren says nothing, only pauses to make sure he heard correctly, "Get Armin." he repeats. His voice is flat and unamused. The thought of the two together immediately puts an unwelcomed, ugly thought into his head.

"Yep," Mikasa breaks eye contact applying pressure to the spot that has been annoying her for the past half hour. "Get Armin."

Eren scoffs, and Mikasa pushes down the inexplicable anger that forces its way up her throat with her full body weight. "Okay, I'll get _Armin._" she hears him mumble under his breath.

Not too long after, Mikasa feels a gentle knock at the door that brings her an odd sense of comfort. Nothing like how she had been feeling moments prior.

"Heyaz," a gentle, familiar voice greets her. Mikasa looks up, eyes glossy from her conversation with Eren. "You okay?"

She shakes her head, throwing her free hand up and letting it slap down on her thigh in frustration. "What am I doing wrong, Armin?" Mikasa exhales loudly. Armin comes up to kneel in front of her, and she duly noted how his aura is nothing like the aggressive one she had just faced. Instead, Armin brings a hand to cover her own- the one tending to the wound- and slowly pries it off so he can take a look.

"Nothing," he says. "you're doing the best you can."

The blond reaches over and takes more gauze to wrap around the wound, but not after wiping it clean of any excess blood. He applies pressure to the wound before wrapping it smoothly around her body. Subconsciously, she leans into his touch. Armin offers her a light smile.

"Hey," he cups her cheeks in both hands. "It's just a tough situation. That's all that it is."

Mikasa pouts. "It's getting tougher."

"Yeah," Armin wipes at a stray tear he knows she wouldn't have wanted to escape, "I know." Brushing hair away from her forehead, he palms at her nape to bring her head closer to his. Armin presses his lips to her forehead and physically feels the tension leave her shoulders. He coaxes her to lean into his shoulder, and Mikasa takes the opportunity and runs with it. She presses her nose into the crook of his neck and revels in the way Armin handles her delicately.

It was nice to feel protected.

Eren eyes the interaction from where he lingers by the door, his two (former) best friends too wrapped up in each other to notice his presence. His heart sinks into his stomach when he notices how gentle Armin is with her, how he _always _has been with her, and how he couldn't seem to give her that.

He sees Armin shift, beginning to pull back, and Eren startles a bit. He really should get going before the others notice he's been gone awhile, but he can't seem to tear his eyes away from them. He aches all over. It's not some sharp, immediate physical pain he can identify, no. It consumes him, spreading through his body like a wildfire just by seeing the damage he's done to the people he loved the most. The silver lining that Eren kept having to remind himself of, however, was that at least they had each other to seek out.

When this was all over, Eren blindly wished, he'd take them both back in a heartbeat. He'd laugh and tell them all about how he hated every second of what he had to do. Hell, he'd even pat Armin on the back for the good punch he threw at him.

That is, if they survived that long. Eren wasn't stupid, he knows better than to speak for the future.

"Thank you," he hears Mikasa mutter. She pulls away to lightly press her lips to the blond's cheek before pushing him by the shoulders, presumably telling him she can take it from there.

"You'll be okay on your own?" Armin asks.

"Always. And Armin," she calls him back. "I love you, okay?"

Armin smiles at her sadly and squeezes her hand. "Of course. I love you, too."

"I just wanted you to know," she gazes at him, an indescribable look on her face. "We just. We never know, you know?"

He chuckles. "I know."

The moment is so tender, so sincere, and full of words Eren could never seem to bring himself to say. And oh _god_ he can't watch-

Eren stalks forward until he's completely out of sight and leans against the wall. He takes an impossibly deep breath and wills himself to regain his aloof composure before anyone can see him vulnerable.

* * *

"Where's your scarf?" Eren asks her the next day, unable to stay away for too long.

"I… don't know."

"You...misplaced it?" He hesitated, afraid of her answer.

"Um, I...yes."

He fiddles with the fabric in his back pocket, pulling it out when he's a comfortable distance. "You really need to keep track of this." he teases, but she smiles warily at the fabric. Eren easily pinpoints her discomfort, but struggles with a way to confront it without starting anything.

"Eren, where did you…?"

"Uh," he scratches the back of his neck sheepishly, "what's her name… Louise gave it to me. She said you left it in-" Realization dawns on him, and his face falters slightly. The miniscule amount of confidence minutes before walking in was now gone. "You left it on purpose, didn't you?"

He looks so sad, Mikasa doesn't know what to say. She supposes that now it's her turn to break his heart. "Yes, Eren."

His posture slouches slightly, looking defeated. He tugs at the frayed edges anxiously. "Why?"

"Eren, that scarf," she gestures towards the red fabric, "it used to mean everything to me. It brought me comfort and warmth, and it even smelled like you. Thank you for that, really. But ever since you called me a slave…"

"Mikasa," Eren cringes, face scrunching up as he remembers crying so hard he almost threw up.

"That scarf is a leash." she continues, resolve strong, "It's a chain that binds me to you, and that's all I can see it as now. It's not the same."

He sighs, fingers buried into the scarf, "You know I never meant it like that when I gave it to you. That was never my intention."

"I know," she reassures him with a pat on the shoulder, and he scolds himself for wanting to be closer when all he's ever done was push her away. Mikasa smiles at him sadly, "Times change, though. Things change."

"Well this… sucks." He groans, embarrassed, but more hurt than ever, at how this was turning out.

Mikasa laughs. It's been so long since she's seen his ears tinged red with embarrassment. She reaches out and tugs on it like she used to when they were younger, and revels in the way he winces, but makes no effort to pull away. A wave of nostalgia crashes over them both.

"It doesn't have to be a sad thing, Eren. You're free, right? That's what you've always wanted. I'm done."

The words "you're free" punched him in the face and called him lonely.

_No, _Eren's mind immediately protests. The thought of being free from her felt so inexplicably wrong. So out of character, and that the two of them being together was supposed to be inevitable. It wasn't supposed to be like this. He wanted to reach out and grab her, hold onto her wrist like he's done before, and keep her close to him. Eren wanted to protect her, put her in his pocket to shield her from all the bad things in the world. But as he looked at her, _really _looked at her, she seemed to say, "Just so you know, I'm perfectly okay with taking care of myself" without actually verbalizing it. Eren sees how happy Mikasa seems. She's glowing; an obvious light twinkles in her eyes as she looks at him. Her cheeks seem fuller, posture straightened, an overall healthy vibe radiating off of her. Eren knows, that no matter how badly he wants to hold onto this, he can't.

He won't.

"So you don't want it back…?" he throws the question at her as his Hail Mary, a final attempt, just to say that he exhausted all possibilities.

"No." Mikasa answers, all traces of finality present. She steps closer to him and covers a warm hand with her own, pushing the scarf back down to his sides. As she begins to pull away, Eren twists his hand free from the scarf to hold onto hers. Her eyes widened in surprise at the contact, but she doesn't move away. In fact, Mikasa lets him lace their fingers together.

Eren squeezes. "I'm proud of you."

"Thank you," she offers, "I'm proud of me, too. And so is Armin."

Eren chortles. "So you and Armin, huh?" his tone teases her, but there's no trace of malice or jealousy.

"What?" she blanches.

"I mean, it's great. He's so good to you. You deserve someone who appreciates you."

"Oh, no, we're not- Armin and I aren't a thing." she quickly negates the assumption before either of them can entertain the thought any longer. Silence falls over the two once more, no longer filled with tension, but with comfort. The growing tension between them had obviously weighed more on their shoulders than either of them would have liked to admit.

"I miss you."

The words tumble out of his mouth before he can stop them.

"Oh," Mikasa cooes and palms at his cheek, "I miss you, too."

"Then I don't understand," he's scrambling for some kind of purchase on her, "why are we breaking apart?"

Mikasa is quiet for a moment. She bites her lip, pondering, until, "I haven't had a moment to properly grieve."

"You don't have to grieve alone," Eren adds, "I'm still here."

"Eren, I have to grieve _everything_, everything since the day of the Battle of Trost_._" she tells him sternly, "There is so much to cope and you know that. I have a lot to undergo before I can be with anyone."

"Mikasa-"

"But," she puts her hand up, interrupting him. "I still choose you."

"...Huh?" he cocks his head, clearly confused by her shift in decisions. "But you just said-"

"It's one thing to be bonded to you because of my bloodline, Eren, but it's another to choose you because I love you."

There it was. Cat's out of the bag now.

Eren stares at her blankly, dumbfounded. Despite his lack of a reaction, Mikasa feels no heartbreak or discomfort.

"I know, there was no huge, romantic or pretty way of saying it" she smiles a little. "I've lived with these feelings for so long, Eren. I think you know by now if you love me or not, and at this point, time won't really change that. But it's okay, I've made my peace with either outcome."

For a moment he's just looking at her, like a volcano that wants to- needs to- erupt, so badly that the magma begins to seep along the edges. He wants to tell her, but the fact that she had literally just told him she'd be totally fine without him seemed to be a pretty big barrier.

Mikasa seems to understand the intense look in his eyes. "What is it?" she watches him lick his lips in hesitation, searching for the right words in this semi-panicked state. He seemed to be measuring his next words carefully, as if saying the wrong thing could just send her away again, just like that. He'd already made that mistake once. Her voice coaxes him back into reality, however, when she says gently, "talk to me. You can tell me anything."

"I do."

She froze. "What?"

"Mikasa," he grabs her hand and puts it to his chest desperately. "Mikasa I love you, what are we doing?"

"You…" the words die on her tongue as she hears her own heartbeat in her ears louder than his words. "Oh my god…"

"I shouldn't have waited until now, I know. It was stupid, and I'm sorry. But I love you. I love you." He almost looked like a figment of her imagination at this point, saying these things she had only heard him declare in her dreams.

"Eren, I…" she pauses, really looking at him. His look of sincerity and puppy dog eyes she hasn't seen in years seemed to win her over. It seems so unreal and her knee-jerk reaction was to cling to logic: "We...we still have a job to finish, we're not done yet, the...the war, our friends, I just…"

"But I want it now." He states the obvious, halting any other reasoning she may have. Mikasa melts at his admission and she realizes how much tension she had been harboring in her shoulders when she felt them relax at his words.

"It's going be you, Eren. Just give me time," she reasons.

"Do we even have time, though? I've just seen so much, we're not guaranteed a tomorrow. You've never been more than a hundred feet away from me, and it took me ten years to get to you," Eren tells her, his hand still holding onto hers as if she would just run away as soon as he let go.

"Okay," Mikasa answers shakily. "Okay. So this, this is us now, right? We're done messing around."

"Yeah, I- god, yeah I'm done." He pulls her into a hug, so desperate, so tight, like Eren Jeager would be damned if he ever let her go again. He presses a kiss to her forehead as he feels her arms wrap around his own figure, "we're done being stupid."

"Good because I don't wanna mess this up, Eren. I can't lose you again."

"I know, I'm sorry. I love you."

Her muffled giggles against his chest send him up to cloud nine. He can hear the smile in her voice as she tells him, "I love you, too."

* * *

A/N: Alright so I saw the spoilers for 119 and I panicked. In my state of distress, I shit out this fic because I needed something to throw my feelings at. All I know is that Eren literally lost his head and then I saw a spoiler somewhere that Mikasa was injured? I'm pretty sure it turned out to be fake, but I thought it would add some substance to this piece so I took it and ran lol. I hope you enjoy, leave me some love!

Also! This is the rewritten and edited version of Change My Mind. That was my first fic I ever posted on ff and tumblr, and looking back at it, I saw how much I've improved since a year ago. So I took the dialogue of the fight and manipulated it to work well with the different circumstances, and here we are. The end piece turned out to be too different from the original (which I think is good!) so I had to rename it. I hope you enjoy, leave me some love!


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